Brown Paper Package
by BrassBuckleBoots
Summary: He expects her letter to say, "Congratulations, you bastard- don't let her bang monsters in the forest when she's older." But what he reads is something entirely different. Klaus hears from Caroline following his daughter's birth. Post 5x11.
1. Brown Paper Packages

He doesn't know if he wants to read the letter. He knows he will- not reading it was never a consideration- but he doubts her words will comfort him in any way. He's fully expecting "congratulations, you bastard- don't let her bang monsters in the forest when she's older." (He regrets how it happened. He wanted the first time he slept with her to be romantic, epic- not against a tree and tinted with desperation. But faced with her light, her strength, after so much pent up longing and so many months away from her- control was never an option.)

He doesn't know how she found out, exactly. He should have known she would. Maybe the Lockwood boy was the one, yelling it at her, intending to hurt her as much as she hurt him. Maybe the Bennett witch heard through some magical grapevine, and shared the news hesitantly in their Whitmore dorm room. He doesn't know what her reaction was- he doesn't know much about her life at all anymore. He tells himself he doesn't care.

He has a man keeping watch over her, just in case she finds herself in trouble. She doesn't know, of course, and he knows she can take care of herself. He tells himself that when she's older, or she breaks away from the Doppelganger, he'll stop trying to protect her. (He doubts it.)

There are other things to worry about. He's at war with the witches, for one. It will take decades for him and his siblings to work through their latest conflicts with each other. But mostly, he has a baby girl now, and he has no idea how to be a father.

He opens the brown paper package and finds a stuffed animal that resembles a wolf- deep blue, with big eyes and floppy ears. It's a fluffy, comforting thing. (Really, love, he thinks with a smirk. No fangs?) The letter slides out from underneath it.

_It's for Luna. Don't worry, there's no vervain in it. The toy store in Whitmore doesn't sell stuffed vampires, obviously, but I thought a stuffed wolf would be just as good. (This does not change the fact that I'm super freaked out about her and Hayley and what happened in the woods that day. Don't get any ideas.)_

_I'm doing okay you know. You can call off your man. I still have your number in case of emergency, anyway._

_Klaus, you aren't Mikael. I'm sorry if that crosses a line but you need to hear it from someone just once. You'll be fine. You'll be more than fine. You both will._

_Caroline_

Not for the first time when it comes to Caroline, he doesn't know how to process what he feels. Instead, he tucks the letter away for safekeeping and goes upstairs to a soundly sleeping Luna. He strokes his daughter's hair and puts the little wolf in the corner of her crib. Rebekah might kill him for it tomorrow- he's not sure if stuffed animals are a safety hazard- but when Luna reaches out in her sleep and wraps her little fingers around the wolf's paw, he can't bring himself to remove it.

Gods, he loves her already. He loves them both.

Caroline is studying for finals when her phone goes off.

_Luna won't let go of your present. I'll call my man off eventually, but you know me. _

_We'll be fine, sweetheart. Thank you._

Her smile lights up the room.


	2. Tied Up With String

**Author's Note: Thank you all so much for your reviews. Brown Paper Packages is my first ever FanFiction, and your support was such an amazing surprise. You motivated me to write more, and I sincerely hope enjoy the second part!**

Klaus absolutely did not need a shrink. This appointment was absolutely not a therapy session. If anyone asked (which they wouldn't), he would say he was at Rousseau's with Elijah. He just wanted to talk about this (and figure out how to contain the sheer amount of happiness coursing through his veins) with someone who was not in his family.

He was sitting in Cami's office and staring at the little object in his hand. He was sure he had a look of astonishment and wonder on his face, along with the small tinge of fear that crossed his features as he inevitably thought of all this disappearing. He was also sure Cami had only seen this expression once, a little over a year earlier.

"_What's got you looking like the cat that caught the canary?" _

"_A vampire friend of mine is coming into town."_

"_Oh? Don't let him eat any of the patrons."_

"_It's a she. She's doing her residency here at Tulane Medical Center. Her name is Caroline and she might be the love of my existence. Mention her to anyone and I'll rip your heart out." He said it like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, not the monumental leap of faith he'd been waiting for._

_Cami nearly choked. She met Klaus ten years ago as a student studying paranormal psychology, and he quickly compelled her to spy for him while he dueled with Marcel for control of the French Quarter. She had eventually discovered she was a pawn, walked away from both him and Marcel, got sucked back in when the witches had gone bat shit crazy, and ended up a vampire. Through all that, she and Klaus had somehow become genuine friends. Cami was now, for lack of a better term, a supernatural therapist. She assumed she had heard it all. _

_That belief was obviously incorrect._

"_The love of your existence is a vampire doctor?!"_

* * *

"Luna, you're not hungry?" Caroline asked. Luna was always hungry. She spent the better part of her days running around and getting into mischief, which Caroline found required a tremendous amount of calories. Having the metabolism of a werewolf vampire witch with a beating heart probably had a lot to do with it.

"Bethany Jenkins didn't invite me to her birthday party," Luna said quietly. She was pushing her spaghetti around on her plate and resolutely not looking at Caroline.

"Who is Bethany Jenkins?" Caroline asked gently.

"A girl in my class."

Luna was in fourth grade at Bishop McManus School. Before that, Klaus had fundamentally refused to let her attend elementary school with other kids her age and hired tutors instead. When she arrived in New Orleans a year ago, Caroline had seen Luna's loneliness and armed herself with statistics on the benefits of public education and research on the best schools in the city. Klaus claimed the school system was rubbish. (He was terrified of letting Luna grow up. He was the most powerful creature on the planet, but he couldn't protect his daughter from the real world forever.)

It took Caroline four months (how DARE you march in here and tell me how to raise my child?!), infinite patience ("I'm not threatening to sign her up behind your back! I'm just asking you to think about it, okay?"), and using Elijah, Rebekah, Marcel and Cami as a rotating arsenal of reinforcements to get him to see reason. Somewhere in the middle of the whole debacle, Luna had decided she completely adored Caroline. And even though Caroline had tried to be cool and indifferent (she wasn't her mother, after all, and that hurt), it quickly became apparent that she was as unconditionally in love with Luna as Klaus' little girl was with her.

They had a routine now. When Caroline's schedule allowed it, Luna came over to her apartment after school for dinner and homework time. Klaus picked her up around six when Caroline left for the hospital.

"Is she just inviting a few girls? Maybe two or three?" Caroline asked.

"No, everybody. Just not me. She's being mean on purpose. And I can't tell Dad because he'll think she's threatening the empire or something."

Luna was daddy's little girl, through and through. She understood him extremely well. Even though she was only nine, she already possessed her father's best qualities, including a keen mind, charisma, beauty and strength of will. On the day Luna was born, Klaus had sworn to make sure she never experienced the 1000 years of betrayal, abuse and heartache the Original family had endured before her. He still regularly screwed up, but that promise, along with Caroline's presence and Elijah's example, had made Luna thoughtful and compassionate. Unfortunately, however, she was also extremely sensitive. She had the same fear of loneliness and abandonment that had plagued Klaus his entire existence (and Caroline too, if she was being honest).

"You know, I purposely didn't invite my friend Elena to my birthday party when I was in second grade."

"The one you're trying to convince to visit? By the way, it sounds like that'll take a while."

Caroline waved that off- Klaus and Elena's relationship was her current long-term battle, and the fact Luna had picked up on it came as no surprise.

"Yes, her. Anyway, I didn't invite her and I invited everybody else. Everybody loved Elena and I was being jealous and petty and mean. I was afraid they liked her more. I wanted her to feel left out."

"But you're a good person. And you and her are friends."

"I try to be good. I have to work at it. And Elena and I are friends now because we eventually stopped the petty fighting. I'm not saying be friends with Bethany Jenkins, because honestly it sounds like you'd be better off without her. I'm saying it's entirely possible you weren't invited because she's afraid her friends will like you more, and that scares her, and not because there's something wrong with you."

Luna looked up. "Really?"

"Yes."

_Caroline could remember a similar conversation with Klaus in his kitchen (granted, she had been wearing considerably less clothing.) _

"_Klaus," she had said gently. "Is it possible that everything Mikael did to you was because of his own issues, and not because there was something wrong with you?"_

Luna was quiet for another minute and then brightened up.

"If a finish my pasta, can I have a Fruit Roll-Up?"

"You know those are like, 99% corn syrup and dye, right?"

* * *

This is dangerous. The other shoe can still drop. He has to talk himself down. He had access to her apartment before this. This is only a key. (But it's not. It's trust. And commitment. And she moved here, and she loves his daughter, and he's starting to believe her when she says she loves him too.)

"_It's for you," she said, smiling, full of light and waiting for his reaction to the little brown paper package. "You know, so you can use the front door like a normal person." _

"It's a big deal, a really good thing," Cami says. "You're allowed to be happy about it. We can talk about it more next time, but time's up."

He's on his way out- he has to go get Luna, and he wants to see Caroline before her shift starts- when Cami stops him, her knowing smile making her eyes crinkle up a bit at the corners.

"Klaus. Just give it another year before you get her an engagement ring, okay?"


End file.
